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Sidney hadn’t expected Medusa to actually accept her invitation to get drunk on a random Friday night while the boys were out. It had been a shot in the dark really. They didn’t run around in the same circles, only sharing a few mutual friends. They exchanged a few polite words at school functions but never a full blown conversation. Hell, Sidney hadn’t even gotten Medusa’s number until they both volunteered to help with their boys’ senior prom.
But the Gorgan had accepted Sidney’s invitation, which led to this very moment: the two women sitting in Sidney’s living room with their own glasses of wine.
Medusa was sitting on a big chair by the window, her snakes coiling around her face, with a few sleeping soundly on her shoulder. She really did look like her son, in Sidney’s opinion. Green snakes, scales along her body, with a very alternative appearance. Tattoos, piercings, grungy attire. A complete contrast to Sidney’s own modest style. She was almost intimidated.
Almost. She had been married to Jackson’s father once… if she could handle that man’s irrational behavior, she could stand to get drunk with an alt gorgan.
“You know,” Medusa spoke up, breaking the stretching silence between the two. “Jackson’s a good kid. Probably one of the better influences Deuce hangs out with.”
Sidney sat up a bit, surprised by the comment. Don’t get her wrong, she was incredibly proud of her son after all he’d been through, coming out of it with a desire to be better than some of the less than ideal models he’d been provided. But he definitely wasn’t an angel. He was still a teenager.
Sidney smiled, a small laugh escaping her lips. “I… appreciate it. I definitely tried. He didn’t have a lot of good role models as a kid. I’m just glad he tries to be better.”
“Deuce told me his dad was an ass.” Medusa responded.
Sidney nodded, then sighed. “Blane was… definitely an interesting character.”
Even his name sparked an anger in Sidney. Just thinking about the man made something bubble under her skin, a person aching to be released to wreak havoc on the man.
‘No, not right now,’ Sidney told herself. ‘We’re not drunk enough for that yet.’
Medusa hummed to herself. “Deuce’s dad wasn’t a hero himself. Don’t beat yourself up over it too much.”
Sidney looked up. “I thought you hated bringing him up.”
“Who told you that?”
“Like… everyone.” Sidney answered. “Hell, even the old bog hag at church told me not to mention him.”
“Well, you didn’t mention him. I did.”
Sidney couldn’t argue with that.
The half-human leaned back on the couch. “He was a dick?”
“Major dick.” Medusa confirmed, taking a drink of her wine. “Thought he was some god among men. But then again, most humans are like that when they get to mess around with monsters.”
Sidney shrugged. “Blane was sorta like that. He mostly thought he was some saint marrying, well… me.”
Medusa sat up straighter, swallowing another drink before speaking. “I wondered something about that,” she said as she sat her glass down. “What in Hades do you call yourself? Are you like… half-human, half-monster, full monster? What is it?”
Sidney sighed. “I’ll be honest… I’m not even sure. It’s a really complicated situation.” She sat back against the couch, giving herself a moment to think about it.
“Is it multiple personality?” Medusa asked, clearly trying to be careful. Sidney appreciated the gorgan’s tenderness towards the situation. She shook her head.
“It’s not. Dissociative Identity Disorder is a mental health condition. It mostly comes from early childhood development when significant trauma occurs. Patients typically form alternate personalities or identities as a form of disassociating from reality, which leads to the dissociative amnesia commonly associated with the disorder. That’s why it was renamed and everything.”
“Damn…” Medusa said. “You know a lot about that.”
Sidney chuckled. “Because I don’t have it. But everyone is convinced I do.”
“So what do you have?”
“I physically turn into a different person when I am triggered by an outside event. I’d honestly link it to possible OCD, especially after reading my grandfather’s notes and journals, but nobody’s given me peer review on any of the papers I wrote so...”
Medusa nodded, seemingly impressed by Sidney’s knowledge. “That’s impressive, Doctor.”
Sidney shrugged, taking another drink of her wine. “Eh, I feel like I should do a bit more before I consider myself on His level.”
“To be fair, he also killed a man, so…”
Sidney paused, her brows furrowing in surprise, and she turned to meet the gorgan’s sunglasses cover eyes. “You… know it was Jekyll?”
Medusa raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Aren’t Jekyll and Hyde the same person?”
“I mean… yeah, but… not a lot of people actually get that part, I guess.”
Medusa gave a thoughtful hum. “Seemed pretty obvious to me when I heard about it. Granted, I was alive and stuff, so, I kinda heard it the same week. But, yeah, wasn’t the whole Hyde thing him literally changing his form so he could be a menace without consequences.”
Sidney was practically gaping at her now.
“…yes, actually. Yes it was.”
Medusa chuckled to herself. “See, I know things.”
Sidney slumped back against the back of the couch, shocked that someone else actually understood the experiment. “The man cursed his whole bloodline just to indulge in his own desires.”
“I assume the potion he made turned into something else?”
Sidney nodded. “From how I understand it, Jekyll’s “mask” of Hyde eventually began to grow into a full on separate entity along the line. My father dealt with his Hyde since birth, so began to disassociate himself from his Hyde. I think he was more embarrassed of it than anything, and eventually amnesia came into play and… yeah.”
Medusa raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said it wasn’t dissociative identity disorder.”
Sidney rolled her eyes. “It’s the Jekylls versus the Hydes. None of this makes sense.”
Medusa chuckled. “Touché.”